16.11.2006
Many questions, no answers
Last weekend saw the SWP attempt to win union militants to Respect. Alan Stevens reports on the Organising for Fighting Unions conference
Everyone can see that there is a crisis of political representation for the working class, but the left is all over the place on how to solve it. The Socialist Workers Party's convening (through its Respect front) of the November 11 'Organising for Fighting Unions' conference was therefore a welcome initiative - or at least it seemed so in relation to the way it was promoted: as "a forum for debate" on how to achieve political representation and "how to organise for fighting unions".
Of course, those who have been around for a while have come to expect a fair degree of SWP control-freakery. However, the comrades really outdid themselves this time - the surfeit of stage-management completely excluded any effective debate.
The conference was divided into three main sections: 'Organising fighting unions', 'The fights we face' and 'Who speaks for trade unionists: the struggle for political representation'. A concluding section was set aside to "discuss" and vote on a Workers' Charter and elect an organising committee.
Each of the main sections had four "keynote" speakers on the top table who would then be followed by contributions from the floor - but interspersed with other "guest" speakers. According to the blurb sent out to delegates, there were to be three other pre-selected themes running throughout: stopping the privatisation of the NHS, education and housing; support for the RMT-sponsored Trade Union Freedom Bill; and defending pension rights.
The split into three sections was artificial - inevitably virtually no-one spoke on topic, given the absence of the sort of structure that concrete proposals in the form of motions would have provided. The whole affair was into a super-rally with endless agitational speeches. Apart from a couple of three-minute attempts from the floor, nothing was said on what it was all supposed to be about - organising. The only 'discussion' on another so-called major theme - political representation - was reduced to a single speech by Dave Nellist (three minutes!) on a Socialist Party amendment to the Workers' Charter proposing disaffiliation from Labour.
To sum up, then, it was agitation, agitation, agitation from 12 top-table speakers and, just to make a change, agitation from a bunch of worked up SWPers from the floor. Ever the slave to spontaneity, the SWP loves to whip up feelings - but has no analysis, no ideas, no programme - nothing except the spontaneous movement and nowhere to go (except, of course, the SWP or one of its fronts). And this is the whole point - to subordinate the independent interests of the working class to the sectarian interests of the SWP.
In such meetings it usually suits the SWP to have a weak chair who is easily manipulated and who does not know what is really going on. They also like someone who is a movement name - someone to the right, someone safe, someone who will not frighten reformists, Labourites and well-meaning liberals. Someone to make it appear as though the SWP is just a part of a bigger, broader and more democratic movement. A front individualised. What results may be confusion and the occasional cock-up, but a loose, populist, lowest-common-denominator mish-mash is highly conducive to promoting a sectional agenda. The very affable Sue Bond, SWP deputy president of the PCSU, filled this role.
She was very nice. She explained there would be plenty of time for debate, but to ensure a good "balance" there would be a speaker slip system. Contributors from the floor would be limited to three minutes each so that as many as possible could be fitted in. She seemed to really believe that this notorious SWP method of pre-selecting contributors and closing down debate was democracy in action.
However, while it was a very disappointing day not only for working class democracy, but for independent class politics, any sort of analysis or effective strategy, it did have some positive features. There were some useful snippets of information and even some inspiration to be drawn from some of the contributions. Reports from around the country gave a sense of the enormous scale of attacks workers are facing, and those who are involved in current disputes drew some strength and got a boost from coming into contact with hundreds of other activists from around the country. With up to 900 present, it was a very decent size. Although well over half were SWP and maybe a further 20% members of other left groups, that still left room for a lot of new faces.
Unlike those from the floor, platform and guest speakers were not restricted to three minutes. John Hendy QC spoke about the Trade Union Freedom Bill, which he had drafted. He said the early day motion supporting the bill, which he described as "mild, modest, moderate", had been signed by 180 Labour MPs the last time he checked. "It's not a revolutionary document," he said, to emphasise the point. "It doesn't even guarantee current international law." Although he "understood the rationale of trade unionists ignoring the law", he thought the bill was a "vital step forward".
In a later contribution John McDonnell described the bill as a set of minimum (minimal?) demands "able to hold together the TUC". He reported that the signatories to the early day motion had in fact gone up to 187, but unsurprisingly no cabinet ministers had agreed to back it. Instead they had asked if the whole thing could be dropped in return for a deal on balloting. "Can we bollocks!" said comrade John, to loud cheers.
A later guest speaker, Steve Gillian (Prison Officers Association and Labour member), was interesting for revealing the increasing militancy of the POA. He described his union's recent defiance of the anti-union laws and their refusal to take their lawyers' advice and apologise to the high court for breaking a court injunction - in face of this defiance the court action was dropped. Of course, workers in key parts of the state like the prison and police services have more clout than most, but the historical message has always been clear: rights must be fought for and won in action, not taken for granted. Steve had good working class instincts - "We need to get our act together, we need to act, we need to take our rights back." He was for working class unity in action. Unfortunately, how you organise it and on what basis did not feature at this meeting.
George Galloway was in good form and, knowing where the SWP 'G' spot was, George went for it. But it was only foreplay and the anticlimax soon followed. Momentarily drifting in the direction of political representation, he talked about trade union-sponsored MPs "doing their duty", as he had on behalf of the TGWU for 33 years. On organisation we were told: "If the trade unions don't come together to stand up and fight, there'll be no unions!" He had nothing else to say on the question - or on representation for that matter - but the SWP, in a constant state of excitement, were clearly satisfied: they clapped and cheered.
The only attempt at discussing organisation came from another of those three-minute contributions from the floor. Rod Finlayson (TGWU), referring back to the Pentonville Five, argued that we need to aim for an unofficial shop stewards movement powerful enough to challenge the government. He criticised the 'official' communist domination of the shop stewards' movement for being sectarian and effectively running a "ban on politicals" (ie, Trotskyists).
While Candy Udwin (SWP) was busy vetting the speaker's slips, Matt Wrack (FBU general secretary) was telling us how bad New Labour is. When he mentioned the disaffiliation of the FBU from the Labour Party loud cheers went up from the majority in the audience. This revealed the SWP's true (but concealed) attitude on disaffiliation. And, true to their opportunist tradition, the comrades later voted against what they believed by voting down the Socialist Party's disaffiliation amendment.
But the 'political representation' section had obviously been very carefully crafted and the SWP was not going to permit anything off-message, let alone an actual discussion. Which was why comrade Nellist was given a guest speaker slot in a different section altogether, even though it was clear what his contribution was about. This was control-freakery gone mad.
Andrew Murray (Stop the War Coalition chair and member of the Morning Star's Communist Party of Britain) was brought on to talk about the anti-war movement, islamophobia and the November 18 people's assembly. Not exactly relevant to the subject matter, but it fitted in neatly with the SWP's desire to bring broader issues and campaigns into the workers' movement uncritically rather than win those campaigns to a working class programme.
Preston councillor Valerie Wise described how she came to resign from the Labour Party and how she is politically lost as a result: "What should I do now? Should I join a new party? Do I become a member of Respect?" (shouts of "Yes!") "I'm struggling with my new-found freedom" (sighs). She is just the sort of person the SWP wants to recruit into Respect - but the few that occasionally appear just keep on wavering.
SWP leaders and Respect national secretary John Rees made a clever, but cynical speech. First an agitational warm-up, next raise the islamophobia banner, then the soft sell: "We have to do something about political representation ... We don't have all the answers but we've made a start "¦ I don't just want to lecture you about whether you should join Respect "¦ Valerie spoke for millions - whether they join now or later we want to work with them to rebuild the movement "¦ We are putting our full resources at the service of the movement - we will work with you."
To those unfamiliar with the SWP it must have seemed like a reasonable, open-minded, democratic and genuine commitment. But all recent history and everything that happened - or did not happen - at this 'conference' spelled out opportunism, sectional politics and accommodation to what is.
It is interesting that Mark Serwotka (PCSU), despite having put his weight behind the pensions sell-out, always receives a rapturous reception - and not just from the SWP. The Harry Potter of the Trade Union movement, he gets himself in the shit but comes out smelling of roses. He told us the TUC still thinks that the Labour Party speaks for workers and contrasted this to the arrogant and utterly dismissive behaviour of ministers union representatives. Whilst not affiliated to Labour, the PCSU supports John McDonnell for leader. It also supports the SP's Campaign for a New Workers' Party. To cap it all towards the end of his contribution he suggested that everyone should consider joining Respect.
Comrade Serwotka said that we all need to fight back together and that the PCSU is moving into a national strike ballot across the whole service. We "all have a critical role to play to ensure we are not isolated," he said. This is a real danger - in the first round of the pensions dispute it was Unison that pulled the plug. No doubt fearing being left out on a limb, Serwotka stresses that there has never been "a more important time for the rank and file to work together to influence the leadership" (that is, the leaderships of other public sector unions). In the immediate future Mark says industrial struggles in the public sector will not be enough: we need a "political alternative". Also needed was a debate on "funding the Labour Party" - although the PCSU is not affiliated, it is "for political trade unionism". The question, of course, is what sort of politics.
Perhaps the worst feature of the day was the selection of stupid SWP speakers who prattled on inanely about people being angry and ready to fight, told us if you fight you win - and, by the way, this is really exciting! Idiot of the day has to go to Jane Loftus (CWU). Having informed the 'conference' that "everything about today is amazing", she attempted to peddle the 'can't divorce the economic from the political' line, as understood by the SWP. The unions need to be "leading the fight against islamophobia, climate change, the Iraq war", etc - while at the same time "the place where you hit them is industrial and economic".
Notwithstanding SWP manipulation, it was clear throughout all the contributions that the whole movement is completely lost for ideas. Amid all the superficial talk of broad campaigns, solidarity, alliances and political alternatives there is fragmentation and sectional battles for control. The SWP controls Respect, The SP controls the Campaign for a New Workers' Party, while the RMT, despite a message of support from Bob Crow, wants to organise its own shop stewards' network (and keep control in the hands of RMT bureaucrats and away from the SWP, SP et al).
'Organising for Fighting Unions' posed a number of fundamental questions - but unfortunately did not attempt to provide answers.